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Angela Watson says staying regulated is the priority
15 Plays54 minutes ago
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
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Welcome to the Learner Centered Spaces podcast where we empower and inspire ownership of learning. Sponsored by Mastery Portfolio, hosted by Starr Saxton and Crystal Frommert.
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In each episode, we will bring you engaging conversations with a wide variety of educators, both in and out of the classroom. This podcast is created for educators who want to learn more about how to make the shift toward learner-centered spaces for their students, schools, and districts, or education at large. The Learner-Centered Spaces podcast is a member of the Teach Better podcast network.
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Get ready to be inspired as we dive right into the conversation with today's guest.
Angela Watson's Teaching Journey
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We are so very excited to have Angela Watson on the show today. She's an educational consultant and instructional coach in New York City. She is an author, speaker, podcaster, professional development provider, and she used to be a pre-K three classroom teacher, and she spent 11 years total in Washington, D.C. and South Florida.
00:01:08
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We asked her to give one sentence on her purpose or passion. And Angela says, making teaching more effective, efficient, and enjoyable. Please welcome Angela Watson to the show today. Hey there. Thanks for having me. I'm always so excited to talk to Angela. So Angela, why don't you share some, some stories or what your origin story is? Like, how did you get on the path that you're on right now?
00:01:37
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So as a classroom teacher, I noticed that the folks around me never had enough time for everything that they wanted to do. And this was the early 2000s, so there just weren't a lot of online resources for it. So I was spending a lot of time in message board forums and sharing pictures of my classroom and just talking about what I was doing from the classroom management piece. And I just loved collaborating with teachers that way. So my website, which I started in 2003, it's more than 20 years old now, which is crazy to think about. It really just sort of was born out of that desire to collaborate.
00:02:16
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with other educators and particularly around classroom management initially because I found that organizations um organizational processes and routines were really taking up teachers' time.
Mindset in Teaching
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So eventually people started telling me, you should write a book. You should put this all together in a book. And so I did. That was my first book was on classroom management. And I started doing professional development and instructional coaching around that.
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and And the way that that grew was I began to see that showing folks the actionable steps didn't work if the mindset piece wasn't there. If they did not believe in their own capacity or their students' capacity to grow and change, if they didn't think that something was possible, if they didn't have the resilience piece of being able to rebound after setbacks, then it didn't matter if you had great systems because you wouldn't have the energy and you wouldn't have the fortitude to keep going through that. So my next book um called Awakened, Change Your Mindset to Transform Your Teaching.
00:03:13
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really hit on that mindset piece. um So those were the different types of problems that I've been solving. And now I feel like my work is a combination of productivity and mindset. That's where the 40 Hour Teacher Workweek program comes in. um My book, Fewer Things Better, also fits that. So it's sort of a blend of the practical tips and also the thinking behind it. Because I think when you learn how to problem solve and you learn how to critically analyze your own teaching practices, as well as your own needs and your students' needs,
00:03:41
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You're sort of learning how to think rather than what to think. And that allows you to be more adaptable and more resilient.
00:03:49
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I think you're so spot on and it's, it's so, I can't even wrap my brain around the fact that it was like 2003 that you built your website that must've been when around the same time that we did meet. That's crazy to me. So what I'm wondering about is if you take this productivity idea and this management idea, how can you help teachers with building a learner centered space? Like what is a learner centered space look within the paradigm of what you're talking about?
00:04:19
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you know I thought a lot about how to answer this in a way that doesn't duplicate what all of your amazing guests have already said about this topic.
Metacognition and Instruction
00:04:26
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And I think for me, the piece that I don't hear quite as often is about explicit instruction for students in metacognition. So I'm really passionate about wanting kids to understand mindset tools, how their brains work, the neuroscience of learning, and to develop a toolbox of strategies for pushing themselves through challenging tasks.
00:04:47
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A lot of the focus right now I'm finding is on modeling this for kids and embedding it in classroom routines, and that is super powerful. I like to also add on that direct instruction piece because I think it helps kids develop a shared vocabulary around what they're experiencing so they can advocate for their own needs. So for example, if a kid is putting their head down and doesn't want to work,
00:05:09
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I want them to be able to identify the root cause. I want them to understand the term cognitive load, for example. I want them to understand that their brains can only handle so much information and so much time in focus concentration before they need a break. And then they can ask for that break without feeling like there's something wrong with that.
00:05:28
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It's not only a norm that the teacher set up in the classroom that it's you know okay to have a break in this room and you know to to take a step back when you need to. But I want them to understand they're having a human experience. Human brains can only handle so much at one time. And when you understand that this is common to all humans, not only does that create a more human-centered way of learning, but it also cultivates self-compassion And that trickles out into compassion for others. I also feel like this sets kids up to make healthy decisions for themselves when the teacher's not around. So if they're doing homework or once they're graduated, they're at college, they won't need that classroom structure of the adult in charge telling them it's okay to take a break or when to take a break or how to take a break.
00:06:09
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or guiding them through a break. That's a great thing really at the elementary level, but as we as kids get older, we really want to cultivate that independence in them. We want them to learn how to monitor their own cognitive load and develop a toolbox of strategies that help them do their best work. So learner-centered spaces to me really empower kids to understand themselves and others and to identify with our common human experiences. So they're not treating themselves like machines or robots who can just keep pushing through everything relentlessly. They're really monitoring their own thinking and their needs, and then they can advocate for themselves.
00:06:46
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thank you Thank you for sharing that. I think it's really important that students take away skills that they could use beyond the classroom you know when they're in other settings or after they graduate. ah You mentioned explicit instruction. I'm wondering if you could elaborate a little bit more on that. um I wrote an article um for Edutopia about balancing direct instruction and discovery or exploration learning. And I think both obviously are valuable. And I wonder if you could say a little bit more about how explicit instruction might play a role in a learner-centered space.
00:07:19
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Yeah, you know, I think we're seeing in education a pendulum swing back toward more direct instruction. You know, we've moved away from that because for so many years we were telling kids things and they were passive learners and we wanted them to be more active. We wanted them to learn through experimentation, um the gamification of learning, for example. But now I think we're seeing that a lot of times we're frustrating kids.
00:07:42
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by throwing them into the deep end and expecting them to arrive at these conclusions independently, when we can just explain it to them and we can give them some of these terms upfront as sort of a lead in. And this was a best practice in teaching for many years. um And I think it's something that is worth returning to, particularly in this case, because we we haven't traditionally taught kids about how their brains work. And I think teaching them that vocabulary, explaining to them um and How to monitor their mindset how to think about their thinking How to be the watcher of their thoughts how to be the director of their thoughts is really powerful These are things that you can sort of set kids up to experiment with and to try out on their own But if you can tell them this directly I feel like it really kind of cuts out the mystery because some of these things are not really self-evident until after you've been told them
Emotional Regulation for Teachers
00:08:33
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and So that's something that I'm working on a lot right now. I have a curriculum line called Finding Flow Solutions that is designed to provide mini lessons and journal activities and things for kids so that they all kind of get on the same page around the terms and the vocabulary and how these processes work. So it's easier to embed in the classroom and it's not up to the teacher to figure out just how to model this for them.
00:08:55
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And I love that you said many lessons because I'm a big fan. I teach math, and I'm a big fan of many lessons. And I i follow Building Thinking Classrooms by Peter Liljedal. And he also models, you know, giving many lessons because not everything can be explored or discovered in mathematics, but many things can. So it's like striking that balance like we were talking about.
00:09:18
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ah But my next question for you is, if you have a teacher in a school or an administrator in a school who's a little reluctant to hand over the control a little bit and have a more learner-centered space where students are making more of the decisions and having more of a voice, what advice would you give someone who's just a little reluctant to do that?
00:09:42
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I feel like the advice that I share with others is often centered on the things that I'm learning myself in my own life. And something that is really big for me right now is learning how to stay regulated. So regulating your emotions, regulating your nervous system, and it's one of the most challenging lifelong tasks that I think we have to continually grapple with and certainly a really important part of teaching. It's learning how to act rather than react and staying calm when the energy around you is chaotic. A lot of times when we're reluctant to try more innovative teaching methods or to give students more control,
00:10:18
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we're We're in a fearful state. We're feeling um worried about what happens if someone comes in and sees something that looks sort of chaotic or noisy. We're worried about losing control. And I think learning how to regulate your emotions to stay calm is really, really essential. um And you know this ties into everything that I do about the mindset piece.
00:10:39
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And learning that mindset is an important part of productivity because if you're only focused on getting things done in the classroom, then the plan becomes more important than the people. And you start feeling rushed all the time and that causes you to rush your students. And that just feels bad for everyone. So learning how to stay really focused on the present moment and responding to what's happening right now instead of just trying to accomplish your tasks for the day or covering the curriculum is essential.
00:11:07
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A lot of our frustration as educators comes from having things that we need to get done, but being constantly interrupted and distracted and having things that pull us away from those goals. So if we can shift our focus from getting things done to staying calm and regulated no matter what, it really can lift that weight of stress because the goal is no longer try to get everything done.
00:11:29
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It's like, okay, I'm going to get it all done, and I'm going to try to stay calm and regulated as much as I can. Instead, the goal becomes, I am going to stay calm and regulated. That is priority one, and I'm going to try to get as much of the work done as I can. So we're centering our own emotional state, our own regulation, our own ability to be present, and then we get done what we can.
00:11:49
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rather than just like pushing through, pushing through, even if we're getting frustrated, we're yelling at the kids, we're brushing, we're not doing things properly. It's sort of switching those goals around in your head. And at the end of the day, when we look at relationships with kids and what's best for kids, as well as what helps make teaching a sustainable profession long-term, staying regulated on a daily basis is so much more important than getting everything done or covering all the curriculum.
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I'm glad you said that last part about covering all the curriculum because that's certainly some of the biggest pushback that I get when I'm talking to teachers about um bringing metacognition into the classroom and decentering grades and all of the things that kind of take a lot of time but get a lot of value.
00:12:35
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But what I'm really curious about is you're you're talking about staying centered and having this mindset. And like intellectually, I want these things all the time. right like I want to be calm. I want to be focused on this this space of just being well-regulated. But i it is it is much harder than it sounds.
00:12:58
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So if you could give some tips or advice on how to get to that like calm, regulated state, especially if you're in the middle. like For example, i've when I was still in the classroom, I remember a couple of times like where I was just not in a good mind frame.
00:13:17
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And I end up snapping at kids, like you were saying, a little bit like a little bit more than I normally would. I mean, I was definitely not a snappy person, but I am human and it did happen. And it would feel horrible immediately. And then I would beat myself up for doing that. And then I was also pretty good about um apologizing to kids publicly because I felt like kids needed to see adult models of what that looks like, but how do you switch when you're in that mode to this calm, regulated space if you're already emotionally charged?
00:13:55
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Yes, that is the difficult piece, right? it It is not easy. It is a practice.
Strategies for Calmness in Teaching
00:14:00
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And you are going to have days like that where you're just snapping at the kids, you're irritable, you just can't get it together. And I think the most important piece is um observing this, noticing this, being aware of it, and non-judgment. So you are not judging yourself for it. Because as you mentioned, as soon as it feels bad when you do it, and then immediately it starts this sort of shame spiral, and it just gets worse and worse. Noticing what you're doing,
00:14:24
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taking action on it. You mentioned apologizing to the kids. um that's ah That's a great way to sort of get back on track because you're you're noticing what's happening, but you're not getting down on yourself about it because you realize this is a human experience. Maybe there's a moment where you can just step over to the window for 30 seconds while the kids are working on something and just breathe. Look out the window, take in whatever kind of nature, trees, sky, clouds, whatever you have. Take that moment for yourself and kind of get yourself back into that state. um you know It can be very challenging and there's no you know magic solution here, but it is a practice if it's something that you learn how to prioritize over time. And I find that what you do outside of the classroom has a huge impact on how you show up inside. So practicing being present in the moment in easier settings
00:15:15
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Like when you're waiting for the microwave to finish cooking or when you're waiting for a traffic light to change practice then and that makes it easier to sit with discomfort in more challenging work sessions or work setting so you're really practicing being comfortable with being uncomfortable.
00:15:30
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And for me, I've been learning that through yoga and through meditation practices. Like I have to lay still for five minutes in Shavasana at the end of classes where you're just laying on your back in silence. And I really try not to move at all. I try not to think at all. I just let the thoughts come and go without dwelling on them. And even just that as a tiny example, it teaches me to be mentally still.
00:15:51
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at a time when I'm panicked or frustrated. When I'm activated, I remember how to do that. My body remembers how to do that. um You know, holding a ah yoga pose for 10 seconds longer than that is comfortable. It teaches me I can do something difficult for longer than I think I can.
00:16:06
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My body wants to give up or my mind wants to give up sometimes before the body. My mind will say, I can't do this anymore. This is too much. But I can actually keep going. So I think practicing this in different settings outside of the classroom, maybe it's in the kitchen, maybe it's experimenting with some different things.
00:16:22
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um when you're in the kitchen just to try to see what happens when things go wrong. So have some more low stakes times like that where you're just really conscious of your reactions. Notice what's triggering you. Notice when you're activated. Notice what calms you. um Nature is another thing that calms me. I have an art practice also. I just think tuning into your own needs and noticing what is restorative for you, what helps you regulate um will really build capacity and your resilience.
00:16:50
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I love that you say that because you made me think of an instance where um I've taught middle school for decades and we were doing something that was a little bit not structured and a little bit chaotic in class. And then I turn around and there's two seventh grade boys doing some sort of play karate in my class and and something falls down. No one was hurt, but it was just so like, what is happening? And I wanted to just like yell, but I counted. I don't know where I learned this, maybe yoga class, but I counted to five.
00:17:26
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And the kids could see, they could see that I was just standing there silently counting to five very quietly. And I remember one of the karate kids goes, uh-oh. Because I wasn't yelling. I wasn't freaking out. I just was counting. Because I did not want to say something I regret. And I wanted to think about what my next steps are. So I'm so glad you said that. And for any teacher who wants to do something chaotic in their classroom, unstructured,
00:17:53
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be ready for some play karate that might happen. I think it's so important for us to be the models of that calm, especially when we're in chaos. And I i think particularly like adolescents, like middle school, high school, when you have a lot of kids in the space and things are supercharged anyway, and there's a lot of things going on in the world around you and everybody's trying to make sense and meaning of things. i I just think that there are so many things we can't see that have impact on the way that we respond to things that if we can take that moment, we're really, we're offering that grace, not just to ourselves, but everyone in the space because we're protecting them from what could come and what harm could come unintentionally.
00:18:42
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um when we're not paying attention.
Innovative Education Models and Resources
00:18:44
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yeah so um So Angela, at this point in the show, we like to talk about shout outs. Are there any folks that you think we should be following, paying attention to, people who inspired you for promoting what you're doing right now?
00:19:01
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you know I really am a big fan of the Modern Classrooms Project with Kareem Farah and Robert Barnett. I think they're doing awesome work in learner and center classrooms in ways that are um very practical. You don't have to buy anything. It's not you know something that you have to do school-wide. It's just an approach that you can experiment with in your classroom. so um I really love them. I also was recently introduced to the work of big picture learning schools. um And I had the privilege actually just this past week of visiting a big picture learning school in the Bronx and just watching the the way that they have made learning so authentic for kids. It is completely different than traditional schooling. i've I've never seen a model like this and I got to watch it in action for two days. So I really want to shout out the BPL model. They are non-profit. They've got schools all across the country. so
00:19:50
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um If you are looking for examples of this in action in rural settings, urban settings, you know in the south and the north, you can find some really great things happening in BPL schools. And I hope our listeners um do know you from your podcast and from your great work and um from your programs that you have. um But just as a reminder, could you share where listeners could find you online to learn more about your work?
00:20:16
Speaker
Yep. Everything is at truthforteachers.com. So you can find my podcast there. It's called Angela Watson's Truth for Teachers, as well as my books, my courses, the 40 hour teacher work week, the finding flow solutions, and of course all the social media links as well. If you want to connect with me that way. Well, thank you so much for being on the show. This has been great. Thank you so much for having me.
00:20:41
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